


Sacrifices of Blood and Bone

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: Side Effects of Friendship [2]
Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Amputation, Dialogue Light, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Horror, Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Six is trying real hard with this whole friendship thing, and she’s actually doing pretty well, good end au, i promise those last two tags are unrelated lol, poor Mono is having a bad time, the power of FRIENDSHIP!, when i say "the power of friendship" y'all; i really mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Given how bad the injury seemed, Mono wouldn’t be able to walk on it for a while, much lessrun.Not too long ago, Six would’ve left. An injury like that was a burden she wouldn’t have anything to do with.But it was different now.Shewas different now, for better or worse.
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares)
Series: Side Effects of Friendship [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182653
Comments: 38
Kudos: 346





	1. A Leg for a Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not done making Six and Mono’s lives objectively happier (she says right before throwing angst at them). They’re stuck with each other for good now. :) 
> 
> Hope y’all enjoy!

Six and Mono were very different in some ways, and very similar in others.

They had survived, unlike so many other children. They were strong enough to keep moving forward, to keep from being too affected by their surroundings. They were clever. Determined. And in most cases, willing to do whatever it took to stay alive.

They weren’t bad similarities, not to Six. She was proud to have lasted so long, and oddly proud of Mono for it, too. Proud to be winning against all the odds stacked against them.

But there were others, ones she was still coming to terms with, because she used to think they were part of the differences between them. Like that neither of them wanted to be alone. Or that they considered each other their friend.

Mono had freed her from the Hunter, and had proved a useful ally against the adults of the world. They worked well together, which made it easier to survive. He was an acquaintance at best—someone she could easily walk away from the moment he became a burden or hindrance. Someone she could at least trust not to turn on her, if not have her back.

She wondered, staring into the meager fire they were both huddled by—Mono curled on his side next to her, sound asleep—when that had changed. When he became her friend more than a tool of sorts, when he was someone she didn’t want to lose for sentimental reasons instead of practical ones.

While he’d been dangling by her hand above the abyss in the Signal Tower, she had considered dropping him. Some part of her motivation had been vengeance—he was the reason she’d been caught, after all, and it had hurt, the way he had brought her back to herself—and another part had been practicality. Better to let go, literally, before he could get her in worse trouble.

Survival was her priority. It had been for as long as she could remember.

Yet she hadn’t been able to open her fingers and let him fall. She’d felt paralyzed by the very thought. Six hadn’t wanted him to die, hadn’t wanted to lose him. So she’d pulled him up and began to reevaluate.

She had asked herself then, and every day since, if she would still want Mono around if he proved to be of no use whatsoever to her survival.

And, confusingly, an oddly loud part of her insisted the answer was yes. No matter how many times she considered the question, that answer never changed.

Because she cared about him, as a person, not as a tool. Mono was her friend, who fought alongside her and rescued her when she needed it and always came back for her. There weren’t many things that reassured her as much as the feel of his hand in hers as they ran along.

It was terrifying. More terrifying than any of the monsters, even the Hunter.

Caring about someone meant it hurt so much more if something happened to them. If Mono had died on the day they’d met, Six probably would’ve forgotten about him by sundown. But now, if Mono died _today,_ it would hurt. A lot, probably.

She didn’t want to get hurt, but leaving him behind would hurt too, which meant the only solution was to stay with him and keep him safe.

Which was frustratingly difficult because of the differences between them. Mono acted on his feelings much more than Six did. Their first meeting was proof enough of that. She knew he had stayed with her in the beginning not for her usefulness, but because he was lonely and had wanted to be her friend.

That they were friends now didn’t mean his actions had been logical. Six could admit, though, that it meant acting on your feelings didn’t _always_ go wrong.

All in all, it was why they were in this situation. Because Mono would always rescue her, even if it meant he got hurt. Which, today, was what had happened.

While navigating a large junk pile, trying to stay out of sight of some hulking, salivating dogs with blood-stained teeth and visible ribs, something had been knocked loose. It was impossible to tell exactly what had happened, but one moment, Six had been tracing a path through the clutter with her eyes, and then next, Mono had barreled into her hard enough to send her flying away from where she’d been crouched.

A pained cry had left him, and a swell of panic that Six still wasn’t used to feeling for someone else had carried her back to his side. There had been a large, heavy piece of metal, twice the size of one of them, pressing down on Mono’s leg.

If he hadn’t pushed her away, it doubtlessly would have flattened her, likely killing her instantly. As it was, Mono’s leg was trapped and the dogs were baying at the commotion, scrabbling at the junk to try and reach them.

With her friend out of commission, Six had temporarily left his side to try and lead the dogs away. Luckily, there’d been a couple large rats she’d been able to draw their attention to, making them forget about her and Mono entirely.

It had occurred to her as she scrambled back to him that she hadn’t needed to do that. That she could have just run off, leaving him behind, and never looked back.

She hadn’t even considered it, though. Her own survival had taken a backseat to his.

His whimpers when she’d managed to lever the metal piece up enough for him to slide free were stuck in Six’s head. Her fingers clenched tighter around the stick in her hand, and she jabbed at the fire with a fierce frown.

Mono had gotten hurt. He’d been in a lot of pain. And even though she was physically fine, she was hurting for him. A side effect of friendship, she suspected.

Her gaze slid to his sleeping form, trailing down to the leg that had gotten crushed. It was discolored and swollen, and he wasn’t able to walk on it. She’d had to carry him here on her back, only a short distance away from the junk pile.

Given how bad the injury seemed, Mono wouldn’t be able to walk on it for a while, much less _run_.

Not too long ago, Six would’ve left. Even _if_ she’d spared the time to free him and bring him here, she would have slipped away as soon as he was asleep, leaving him to fend for himself. An injury like that was a burden she wouldn’t have anything to do with. Until he healed up, she would have to carry him, protect him, find food for him—and all while doing all that for herself.

But it was different now. _She_ was different now, for better or worse. Six didn’t want to leave Mono alone, even if it meant she might have to face more danger. So she wouldn’t. Maybe they could find somewhere to take shelter until his leg got better. It wasn’t like they were in a hurry, after all.

• • • 

When Mono stirred from his restless sleep, he was immediately fighting back tears. His leg hurt horribly, and the slightest movement sent spikes of agony shooting through his body. He wasn’t able to stifle his whimper as he uncurled and opened his eyes.

The fire Six had made was nothing but smoldering embers now, with a scorched stick for poking at it abandoned at its side. The sickly light of dawn was just beginning to poke through the layer of smog covering the city, and what little of it reached their hiding spot revealed that Mono was alone.

He panicked, shooting to sit up despite the pain, and frantically looked around. The tiny area they’d taken refuge in—a corner of a room missing an entire wall, with a couch angled just so to block them in—was empty.

There was no sign of her, though he couldn’t exactly see the rest of the room. “Six?” he whispered hoarsely.

No answer.

Mono took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Six was probably just searching for supplies or stretching her legs or something. She wouldn’t have left him. She just wouldn’t have.

He vigorously rubbed at his face, brushing away his tears.

It felt like an empty reassurance, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Six had gone through the trouble of getting the dogs to leave him alone, freeing him, and then carrying him here. Would she really have left after doing all that?

No. No, of course not. Six was his friend, and their friendship outweighed the crueler side of her survival instincts. Not a week ago now, she had proved that irrefutably. Right?

But where was she now? Was she in trouble? Doubting her decision to stay with him?

Or was this the thing that would convince her to leave?

The memory of his leg being crushed filled him with dread. He’d seen the metal piece falling and had known it would land right on top of Six. Mono had hoped he’d move fast enough to keep from getting caught himself when he lunged to push her out of the way, but obviously, he’d failed.

Had he made Six realize he was too much of a burden? A crippled leg may very well be a death sentence to him out here, which meant it would be dangerous for Six as well, if she stayed with him.

Mono sagged in on himself, shoulders hunching in despair. He lightly touched one of the worst bruises, just below his knee, and winced. There was no way he’d be able to walk on his own.

Fidgeting with the frayed edge of his coat, he tried to think like Six. Their friendship had been enough for her last time; would it be this time?

She would have to take care of him until he got better. Keeping herself alive was difficult enough, but for her to take responsibility for him as well?

 _I have to trust her,_ he thought, tucking his uninjured knee to his chest and hugging it tight. _I want to trust her._

Six hadn’t let him down before. Hopefully, she wouldn’t this time, either.

Before he could spiral any further, he heard a quiet, “Hey,” from above him.

Snapping his head back, Mono stared up at Six, who was perched on the back of the couch and looking down at him. Heart in his throat, he was unable to respond.

When he remained silent, Six nimbly leapt down, landing beside him with a muffled thump. She frowned at whatever expression she saw on his face. A questioning little hum rose up in her throat, and she glanced between his face and his leg with concern.

As much as he would have liked to communicate only with looks and gestures, some things required words. This would be one of them.

“You were gone. I… I thought…” he whispered, voice cracking.

“That I wouldn’t come back?” she finished. A small smile tugged at her lips. “Friends stay together. Right?”

He nodded, biting his lip. His vision blurred.

Six sighed fondly and scooted closer to carefully wrap her arms around him without jostling his leg. Since their escape from the Signal Tower, they’d started hugging a lot more. Mono gratefully buried his face against her raincoat.

 _What now?_ he wanted to ask. Six couldn’t possibly carry him around until he could walk again. He feared the answer a little less, though. She had come back for him, after all.

“I found a safe place,” she told him without pulling away, sparing him. “I think we should stay there until your leg gets better.”

Mono involuntary sagged into her hold. _We,_ she’d said. _We._

Throat closing up, he squeezed her tightly, hoping it conveyed everything he wasn’t able to say in the moment. She rolled her eyes at him when they finally parted, but she was still smiling a little, so he figured his overly-sentimental message had been received.

Spinning on her heel, Six presented her back to Mono, and painstakingly, they worked together to get him situated piggy-back style. He tightly clutched her shoulders as she stood, only wobbling for a moment while she adjusted to his added weight.

“Ready?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he answered. Nudging his forehead against the back of her hood, he quietly added, “Thanks, Six.”

She huffed and carefully, slowly, began the trek to the safe place she’d found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is already finished, and Chapter 2 will be posted on March 5!
> 
> A lot of my characterization for these two is based on my own observations of the gameplay, in particular, making Mono the more emotional of the two versus Six leaning towards practicality. They’re learning from each other, though.
> 
> You guys are awesome! Simply incredible! 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	2. To Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should come as no real surprise to anyone in this fandom that gross/disturbing things happen in this chapter. There are specifics in this chapter’s end notes for anyone who’d like more info. Please proceed with caution.
> 
> (I really loved the hospital part of this game.)
> 
> Hope y’all enjoy!

Mono anxiously stared out the hole in the wall he was laying beside, eyes slowly scanning the rooftops. The safe place Six had found was a tall, old bell tower set on top of an equally old building. The bell at the top had fallen, the rope rotted away, long before she’d stumbled upon it. It had completely broken the winding staircase leading up to the room at the peak, making it inaccessible by anything that couldn’t climb like they could.

No dogs would be able to find them up there. No adults, either. Only thin ropes and multiple jumps over large broken sections of wood planks could bring someone to their hideaway.

It’d been three days since Six had agonizingly climbed every inch with him on her back, sometimes having to tie a rope around him like a harness to hoist him up where it was impossible to carry him. But she’d done it, and he was so grateful to be able to rest without having to worry about something hungry stumbling upon him.

She’d filled the mostly-intact room with pillows and a few old blankets she’d snatched from somewhere. Cans of food were stacked in one corner, an unbelievable prize she’d found in a cellar during one of her scavenging trips.

They rested together when Six wasn’t busy gathering supplies. It was Mono’s personal favorite part of the day, though he didn’t dare say so aloud. Then again, for how often Six flopped down close enough for him to cuddle against, she probably already knew.

Sharing body heat in the little fort they’d constructed of the pillows and blankets was all they had to stay warm. With how old the wooden tower was, lighting a fire was too much of a risk.

Regardless, it was the perfect safe place. It gave them a good vantage point of their surroundings, which was especially useful these days. Even though the Signal Tower wasn’t broadcasting anymore, the people were still… wrong. Only now, they were wrong and angry, and no longer had anything to distract them.

Mono shuddered. He’d turned a couple televisions off, before, and the single-minded rage of the Viewers he’d interrupted still haunted him. It was like that again, but all the time now.

He sighed and abandoned his futile effort to try and spot Six outside. He didn’t like that she was out there, having to avoid the Viewers and any other horrible creatures. And for his sake, too.

Because she was on a mission to find very specific supplies for him. His leg had been getting worse, not better. A feverish redness—infection, they guessed—was spreading among the bruising, hottest around a cut he’d gotten from the metal piece. It was just above his ankle, and neither of them had noticed it at first.

So, Six was going to the one place they were sure she’d be able to find something to help him: the hospital.

It was a bad idea, a terrible idea. But it was the only one they had, and they were getting desperate.

The pain was so overwhelming now, Mono felt like he’d slipped past feeling it, into some numb, distant state. Like he was only partially aware sometimes, and delirious the rest. His entire leg throbbed and was sensitive to the slightest touch. Even just allowing it to rest on a pillow hurt.

He’d wondered if something was broken, but short of having Six lug him back to the hospital with her to use the x-ray machine, he couldn’t know for sure. Any attempts to bend his knee or ankle resulted in his vision whiting out.

The first time he’d tried, he’d blearily come back to himself to find Six leaning over him, calling his name. Her worry had only grown since then—something she clearly wasn’t used to.

Six had always preferred action. Mono couldn’t help but wonder if her insistence on going to the hospital, even with all its dangers, was her way of dealing with her worry for him. It certainly made him feel cared for, if not incredibly worried himself.

Because even though the gruesome doctor was dead, burned to ash at their own hands, he wasn’t the only monster in that place.

The hands, the mannequins—who knew what else they might have missed.

Mono shuddered and curled up on his side, terrified out of his mind for his friend. He could only hope she’d be careful, and that she found something that made the trip worth it.

• • •

Armed with a small, flickering flashlight, the tattered remains of a fabric bag, and a firm resolve, Six wormed her way into the hospital. The building was dark and eerily silent; it was worse now, facing it alone. Fog filled the hallway, keeping the flashlight’s beam from shining far. The floor, just as she remembered, was littered with trash—papers with faded writing, rusty medical equipment, and those awful fake limbs.

She tiptoed past a pile of arms. None of them moved.

Trying to remember what she and Mono had seen during their misadventure through the hospital, she haltingly made her way to where she was pretty sure the elevator was. During one of the times she and Mono had been separated, she had come across a storage room or something. There’d been bandages in there, she was nearly positive about that.

Something skittered through the vents above her, but whatever it was didn’t seem to know she was there. Dust drifted down to the floor as it shook the air duct.

There really was an absurd amount of fake limbs here, she absently mused as she passed through a hallway lined with overflowing bins of arms and legs. A few flickering overhead lights dotted the rooms she slunk by.

The elevator was easy to find, and it creaked ominously as it descended. The sound was uncomfortably loud. Six hurried away as soon as the doors opened, before it could attract any unwanted attention.

Maze-like, the hospital was confusing to navigate. It was made worse by how many doors were locked or blocked by heavy shelves. Everywhere she turned, she encountered motionless mannequins, forcing her to backtrack before she could find out whether they were the living kind or not.

Time lost all meaning as she searched. Everything looked the same in the fog, all dark and dirty. Her flashlight kept flickering, and it only showed her so much.

With every turn she took, Six hoped to find something familiar. Any sign of her and Mono’s previous presence would have been welcome.

She froze at the sound of the distant, terrible clicking of a living mannequin jerking around. Through the drifting fog, she spotted a silhouette—a pair of teeth jutting out of a fleshy neck. Six ducked through the nearest broken door before it could notice her, and immediately gagged.

The buzzing of flies broke the hospital’s silence. She switched on the flashlight, illuminating a large cloud of them hovering over a tall metal table. The floor around it was stained dark, and she could see the rotting remains of an adult’s intestines. They spilled from the stomach of the victim on the table, a dark, dead, purple color.

What didn’t make sense was how… fresh it looked. And smelled. The doctor had been dead for over a week, by her count. But the blood was still wet, if too thick to have come from a healthy, living person. The stains on the floor weren’t flaked away like in the other rooms. The body—what she could see of it—hadn’t shriveled yet, beyond the gruesome, fleshy appearance all adults had.

The strong stench of decay turned her stomach, and Six dashed across the room as soon as she was sure she wouldn’t throw up. Just as she started to climb a shelf to slip through a hole in the wall, she heard a squelch from behind her.

Six cast a glance over her shoulder and haphazardly turned her flashlight to point at the corpse. The innards jiggled around, and after a moment, the fingers of a severed hand poked through the folds of shiny flesh.

Sucking in a breath, Six hastily finished her climb and lunged through the hole. She hit the ground running, not daring to look back, not even when the unmistakable sound of fingers on the floor followed after her.

She dodged abandoned wheelchairs and porcelain limbs. Reaching a door, she shoved her whole weight into it. Something must have been blocking it on the other side, but whatever it was gave way all of a sudden.

Losing her balance, she tumbled over the threshold, her flashlight clattering to the tile. The skittering got louder and paused just behind her. Remembering the way the hands had scrunched up before pouncing, she twisted and rolled, desperate to keep out of its grasping fingers.

She heard it land where she’d been sprawled only a moment before, and Six jumped to her feet, jittery with adrenaline and furious panic. Her eyes landed on the hand, caught in the beam of light.

It was stained red with the blood of the corpse it’d been buried in, leaving fingerprints behind on the floor. Viscera was caught in its jagged nails. A hacked-off bone stuck out of it, where it had once been connected to an arm.

Six yanked the long handle of her bag over her head and whipped the whole thing at the hand, tangling it up in the fabric. With a growl, she leapt on it before it could free itself, swiping up the flashlight as she went.

Her knees dug into the back of it, and she raised the metal flashlight above her head before bringing it down on the knuckles. Something cracked, and it wasn’t her weapon. She slammed it down over and over, never giving the hand so much as a moment to escape.

It flailed enough to dislodge her after the sixth strike, and she dropped the flashlight in order to catch herself. The hand had only enough time to struggle free of the bag before she was upon it once more, grabbing the already broken fingers and bending them apart.

Thrashing wasn’t enough to save it from her, and the joints snapped as easily as the prosthetic ones she had practiced on when she was here with Mono. Its efforts turned sluggish as she continued, planting one foot beneath her for leverage as she yanked the middle finger completely out of its socket.

Both she and her raincoat were smeared with blood when she finally hopped off the mangled, motionless hand. The fingers were all twisted unnaturally, broken and dislocated. If she’d had something heavier, she’d have crushed the meat of it, too, like Mono had with his sledgehammers and pipes.

It wouldn’t be following her again, she was sure of that. Picking up her belongings, Six quickly made her way out of the room to the nearest hallway.

Though she’d gotten turned around in the brief chase, she was lucky enough to stumble across a supply closet after only a minute. Whether it was the one she’d been aiming for, she wasn’t sure.

The area seemed clear, so Six positioned her flashlight on the ground to shine at the shelves in the small space. Nimbly climbing up and down them, she filled the bag with rolls of bandages, a softer material that she guessed would go beneath them, and tubes of stuff with lots of big words she didn’t recognize and a few she did, like “healing” and “infection.”

Hopefully, they would help Mono.

She was hesitating on whether or not to grab any of the pill bottles when she heard shuffling footsteps coming closer, accompanied by the tell-tale clicking. She stuffed the ones she’d been examining in the bag and hastily began her descent.

Too high up to simply jump to the floor, Six was forced to scramble down the shelves. Just when she was sure she would make it with a second to spare, one of them pulled free of the wall with a crack. It was enough to make her lose her grip, and she fell the rest of the way, unprepared for the sudden drop.

The air was punched out of her lungs on impact, and she was too dazed to move for a few precious seconds.

In that time, a pair of feet—one fake, one flesh and covered with lines of stitches—appeared in the doorway. They kicked the flashlight into the wall, where it flickered off. A single hand made of metal reached down and tightly grabbed her around her waist, lifting her like she was a rag doll.

One of her arms was pinned by the firm fingers, leaving her with only one to struggle with. She shoved uselessly at the metal, kicking at nothing.

With a robotic motion, the living mannequin raised her to its face. At least this one still had its head, unlike many of the others. An expanse of dirty bandages covered it from the neck up, leaving not so much as a hint of skin exposed.

As if it could see her nonetheless, she was slowly turned this way and that in close examination. Snarling, Six lashed out and managed to graze her tiny fingers against the bandages, loosening one.

The mannequin jerked away before shaking her firmly. Her brain rattled around in her skull, dizzying her.

It was already walking down the corridor by the time Six regained her bearings. It was then that she noticed two things. One, its clothing—a doctor’s long white coat, stained with blood splatter. And two, its other hand, which wasn’t a hand at all.

It was a large, sharp knife, attached to the stump of its wrist. The blade was smooth and wet with blood.

_Every hospital needs a doctor,_ she thought. They might have killed the last one, but there were plenty of bodies to fill the need. And it looked like this one had just caught its newest patient.

• • •

Six could fight off one severed hand, maybe even two if she was careful about it. But a small army? She was only so fast at breaking fingers.

She didn’t go down without a fight, though.

The doctor mannequin seemed to somehow control the disembodied hands, and it stood by in its forced silence as she wrestled with them until they finally, one by one, pinned down each of her limbs.

More than one helping hand was damaged in the process, a fact which made her proud. Six bared her teeth at the others as they skittered away from her.

Thick leather bindings kept her wrists and ankles flat to the metal table beneath her. They allowed for no wiggle room. Her bag—still full of the supplies she’d come here for—and her raincoat, which had been wrangled off her during the struggle, had been discarded on the floor. The hands ignored them as the scurried off, probably to go terrorize something else with the misfortune to be in the building.

On her left, the hospital’s new doctor loomed over her, partially blocking the bright light centered above the table. It was carefully angled to leave the mannequin in the shadows, unaffected.

Off to the side, on one of those little rolling carts, was an array of rusty tools, ranging from an entire saw to a hammer to funny-looking implements that appeared to be a cross between scissors and tweezers.

Panic fluttered in her chest. She trembled on the table, with only her threadbare nightshirt from the Hunter’s house protecting her from the cold metal. It seeped into her bones regardless. She remembered the previous doctor, the way he yanked body parts off some of his—hopefully—dead victims, the manic way he’d sawed at others.

The headless, limbless bodies inhabiting the hospital—they’d all been people once. The underlying, inescapable smell of rot permeating the building was more than proof of that. She didn’t like thinking about why some of them could still move.

Were they technically still alive?

The doctor raised its metal hand and, disturbingly gently, traced lines over her body. Across her neck, down her chest and stomach, crossing her legs at her knees. Back up to her shoulder on the left, then her wrist on the right.

It was planning where to cut.

Six’s mind raced, frantic. She was out of time, unable to move, and about to be dismembered. If she was _lucky,_ she’d be dead by the end of it, but Six was _not_ in the habit of counting on luck in the world.

Blade glinting, the doctor fluttered its knife over her tiny body, as if it couldn’t decide where to start.

She thrashed, nothing more than animal instinct guiding her movements. The bindings felt like they were getting tighter, the light burned into her eyelids—eyes squeezed shut; don’t look, don’t watch—and the mannequin’s clicking in the silence sounded like bones snapping.

Memories—reminders—flooded her. She was back in the Hunter’s house, feeling the weight of his wide hand pressed down on her back, the rough ropes on her wrists; hearing his harsh breathing through the burlap bag covering his head. The one time he’d taken it off in front of her, the _horror_ she’d felt at the sight of his face—

She’d given up back then, resigned to her fate in that locked room, and now she did the same, the afterimage of the doctor blurring with the Hunter leaning over her. Six went limp with a choked whine as the cold bite of metal met her skin.

That musty carpet in her prison room, filled with the tinkling of her music box—the smell of blood and cooked flesh from the Hunter’s other victims drove her mad when he starved her, torn between knowing the meat she smelled was _human_ and knowing it was still _meat_ —the buzzing flies filling the house, seeking out the corpses—a weapon striking through the door, metal against wood like a knife against skin—hacking, hacking, hacking away—a hand, reaching for once, not grabbing, and only as small as she was—a boy, a boy with a paper bag on his head—

Mono.

The warmth of her own blood spilled up out of the stinging cut—pain not even comparable to things she’d felt before—forming on her wrist as her eyes snapped open.

Mono had saved her. He’d cut down the door with a stolen axe and offered her his hand. They’d escaped—they’d _killed_ —the Hunter together.

And he was waiting for her, back in the bell tower. He _needed_ her. If she died here, or if she was turned into one of those living mannequins, Mono would be left alone, unable to walk.

If _she_ died, _Mono_ would die.

Fury burned through her, piggybacking on her fierce determination to make it out of this place and get back to her friend. The doctor was leaning over her to better amputate her hand on the far side of the table, and with every ounce of her strength, Six leaned up, straining against the leather bindings, and dug her teeth into the slightly loosened section of bandages she’d snagged earlier.

The bandages, it turned out, had gone delicate with age. Yanking the one piece free undid the rest, and the whole wrapping fell apart into decayed threads of thin cloth.

Like before, the doctor jerked out of reach, but not before the damage had been done. His knife-hand, too, jolted, slicing through the leather—and her arm beneath it—as the mannequin recoiled away from the table.

Past the surge of adrenaline, her arm stung fiercely. It was ignorable, and Six forced the hurt from her mind as she tore at the other leather restraints while the doctor was distracted.

She spared a single quick glance at its revealed face and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Not much flesh remained on the corpse’s face. Its eye sockets were empty, the skin sunken and molded to the skull. Its jaw was locked open in a tormented scream, the bottom broken and offset from the top. Many of its teeth were missing or cracked in half, leaving a jagged maw behind. Even in that split-second peek, Six could see the newly exposed flesh begin to peel away from the bone beneath, entire strips sagging off to land on the floor with the faintest of sounds.

Finally free, she wasted no time in leaping off the table. Her breaths came quick as she snagged her raincoat and bag and slammed her way through the door. The doctor twitched after her.

Its stuttering steps followed her as she ran, dripping blood, but Six didn’t care. So long as she wasn’t strapped down, she had a fighting chance.

Today, luck appeared to be on her side. As she skidded around a corner, she spotted the best possible thing she conceivably could have stumbled across.

A sledgehammer.

Six tossed her things out of the way when she reached it, wrapped both hands around the wooden handle, and whirled, lifting it as she went. Her timing couldn’t have been better. With the whole of her weight thrown behind the motion, the heavy end smashed right into the doctor’s flesh knee.

It stumbled to the side, abandoning its attempt to reach for her, and collapsed to the knee she hadn’t hit. She reeled back and struck again, driving the sledgehammer right into its hip. The doctor jerked and stuttered, twisting as the force knocked it over.

With a little war-cry, Six hefted her weapon and brought it down right over the doctor’s missing nose. Brittle bone shattered, the doctor’s skeletal face caving in around the impact point. The mush that its brain had become leaked a sickly grey-red through the cracks she’d created, and Six was more than happy to finish the job.

Adjusting her aim, she crushed the upper portion of its head, resulting in a satisfying splatter of rotten grey matter.

Panting, Six took a few steps back, dragging the hammer with her. She waited, but the doctor didn’t move.

Satisfied, she picked up her belongings, abandoned the weapon with a little pat in thanks, and fled the hospital.

It was night when she emerged, and raining, too. The first thing she did was suck in a breath of slightly less disgusting air. The second thing she did was set the bag somewhere dry before going to stand in the rain, her coat in hand. She only donned it once again when she was shivering but clean.

Her right arm stung badly, the pain filtering back in now that the excitement had passed, and in the dim light of a streetlamp, she finally spared a moment to examine the cuts the doctor had made. The one that crossed her wrist, with the clear intention of removing her hand, was clean and not _too_ deep. It looked like this doctor had intended to take its time with his work, unlike the frenzied removals the previous one had demonstrated.

It needed treatment, especially since it hadn’t stopped bleeding. And neither had the other, for that matter.

The second slice, made when the doctor had jerked in surprise, traveled up the length of her arm, more than halfway to her elbow. It was jagged, having been quick and accidental, and was deeper in some areas than others.

Impatient as she was to get back to Mono—her _friend,_ she wanted to see her friend, take comfort in his presence, and find out whether her mission had been a success or not, whether the supplies she’d managed to gather before her capture were _enough_ —the last thing she needed was to get an infection like he had. If the both of them were to go out of commission, it couldn’t possibly end well.

Her work was sloppy, being one-handed for the job, but she managed to smear the cream over the wounds—which _hurt_ —and wrap them up well enough that the bandages didn’t immediately slide off.

Huffing out a weary breath, Six finally set off, ready and willing to walk all night to get back to Mono. He’d been left waiting long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: description of corpses, including a severed hand emerging from one’s exposed intestines; description of Six breaking a hand similar to what she did in the game; attempted amputation on a conscious child, during which Six has a brief panic attack; description of a corpse’s head being smashed in with a sledgehammer 
> 
> I legitimately considered giving one of them a prosthetic from this place, but the issue of attaching it correctly, as well as finding one small enough, stayed my hand. Maybe in a different story. 
> 
> Chapter 3 will be posted on March 10! Love y’all!! ❤️❤️❤️ Thanks for reading!
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	3. And Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a soft chapter, my dudes. And while it's the end of this story, it's not the end of the series! 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Mono was disturbed from a restless nap, shivering with fever, by the sound of movement outside the bell tower. It’d been nearly two full days since Six had left, but they’d known she had quite the trek ahead of her, considering how far they’d traveled from the hospital. Was it too soon for her to be back?

He had little to defend himself with if it wasn’t her, especially since he could barely see straight. The noises grew closer, and he found himself holding his breath, straining to hear anything that could tell him whether the visitor was his friend or not.

To his immense relief, the grunt he finally picked up on was Six’s. Unmistakably so.

Relaxing, Mono waited patiently for her to climb inside one of the few entrances the room boasted. He would have called out to her, but he didn’t want to startle her into losing her balance.

At long last, the bright yellow of Six’s raincoat appeared in one of the small holes.

Tension he hadn’t realized he carried drained out of Mono. The worry and stress lifted from his heart, chased off by the confirmation that Six was alive. She’d come back to him.

His friend, when she turned to face him, looked extremely tired. If she had traveled all night, it would certainly explain her early arrival. She dropped her bag with a thump and stumbled over to the pillow bed surrounded by the makeshift fort.

Mono’s concern swelled as he sat up to better take her in. There were faint red marks around her ankles, with underlying bruises, like something had been tightly wrapped around her there. It was harder to see her wrists, what with the sleeves of her raincoat, but he spotted identical blemishes there, too.

And the slightest hint of a bandage on her right wrist.

Only the fact that she was still moving kept him from really panicking. But something had clearly happened during her mission. Something _bad._

Six fell to her knees at the edge of the pillow, yanked her hood off, and gracelessly collapsed onto her stomach with a little huff. With her face buried in the nest, she shuffled closer until she was pressed against Mono’s side.

Something really, _really_ bad.

Biting his lip to keep from crying out, Mono shifted around so he could wrap his arm over Six’s shoulders. He tucked his head next to hers, and it was only then that he heard the faintest little sniffles coming from his friend. She gave no other indication that she was crying.

“Six?” he whispered, huddling closer. If his leg wasn’t a minefield of pain when moved wrong, he would have done more. Pulled her close, wrapped himself around her, found the best way they fit together.

“Long day,” she whispered back, two simple words of explanation.

“Your arm…”

She shuddered. “There was a new doctor in the hospital.” A long pause, during which Mono silently begged her not to continue the way he expected her to. “It caught me.”

He pressed his forehead above her ear, eyes squeezed shut. There’d been a lot of close calls between the two of them—too many to count—but they were just that: _close._ The Thin Man was the worst it had ever gotten, which was plenty awful, but Six had ultimately emerged unscathed.

Not needing a bandage.

Bandages usually meant blood, which usually meant open wounds. And coming from a place where you couldn’t take more than a step or two without seeing victims of dismemberment…

_Oh, Six,_ Mono thought mournfully.

But his friend had escaped, obviously. And he’d seen her hand, so the amputation had clearly failed. But it had been close, he guessed. Too close.

_You’re safe now,_ he tried to will her to believe. _You made it back._

After another minute, Six sighed and slowly got up. If there had been any tears, the pillows had absorbed them. He never would have guessed she had cried in any capacity.

Six retrieved the bag and settled beside Mono’s injured leg. She showed him what she’d brought, and with gentle touches, spread the cream that would hopefully help with the infection. With a helpless shrug, she held out a bottle.

It had the word “fever” on it, mixed in with larger, more confusing words. As lost but as desperate as she was, Mono shook out two pills, hoped for the best, and choked them down dry.

He waited anxiously to see if his stomach would reject the medicine while Six carefully wrapped his leg, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she focused. It seemed to Mono that she was attempting to mimic the neat, professional pattern they’d glimpsed at the hospital. The end result was secure and tidy.

Had it not been for what she’d said about a new doctor having gotten its hands on her, he would have made a joke about her being a doctor herself. He couldn’t have asked for a better caretaker.

“Thank you,” he said, settling back into the pillows.

Pausing in the midst of putting the medical supplies back in the bag, Six looked up at him, her brow slightly furrowed.

“For going,” Mono clarified, then added, “And for coming back.”

She hummed in response as she went back to her task. That was fine. Her faint smile said enough.

“Wait,” Mono said, sitting back up. “Your arm.”

“I took care of it,” she told him. She pulled her sleeve back just enough to display the bandages.

Mono shook his head. “They’re soaked through.” He made grabby hands for the bag.

After a long moment of hesitation, where he feared Six would ignore his request, she stood and passed the bag over to him. While he pulled the supplies back out, Six wiggled out of her raincoat.

The oversized nightshirt she wore was ripped up her right arm, where she’d been cut. She moved the sleeve out of the way and sat down in front of him.

Taking as much care with her as she had with him, Mono unwrapped the sloppy but functional bandages. He sucked in a sharp breath.

He hadn’t expected the cuts to be as big or deep as they were. He trembled in the face of the evidence of how close he’d come to losing his friend. At how close she had come to losing a hand, if not her whole arm.

Six’s free hand reached out and patted his uninjured leg. He nodded and continued.

They didn’t look too bad, in his opinion. Though clearly far from being healed, there was no sign of infection or some other problem. Really, there was nothing else to do but repeat the same procedure Six had used for him. He applied the cream, which didn’t appear to have hurt anything, at least, before layering the softer cloth over the wounds. Six obligingly held them in place while he copied her wrapping style with the bandages.

A strong sense of relief and accomplishment filled Mono as Six once again packed the medical supplies away. He’d been able to help her, even if he was indirectly responsible for the injuries to begin with. She’d get better; hopefully, they both would.

With that all taken care of, Six pried open one of the food cans and hungrily devoured the contents. Mono, who hadn’t gone nearly two days without eating, pulled himself deeper into the comfort and warmth of the fort to wait for her to finish. If he was right—and based on her earlier need for contact, he was sure he was—they’d spend the rest of the dreary day all tucked into each other’s empty spaces.

Discarding the empty can, Six folded her raincoat, set it aside, and crawled into the fort in just her nightshirt. With a little maneuvering, and no words at all, Mono and Six did exactly as he had anticipated.

Her arm crossed over his ribs, his fell over her torso, their heads were close to one another, foreheads gently pressed together, and their legs—three of them—tangled together.

Inseparable. That was what they were.

And Mono wouldn’t have it any other way. These days, he doubted Six would either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next installment in this series will be posted on March 20! I've got a different LN story to post on the 15th, lol. 
> 
> Y'all are the best! ❤️
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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